LUMBERING BY LORRY IN THE VOSGES.
Page 18
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How the Armies Acquire their Enormous Supplies of Timber.
AS ONE SEES load after load of wood going up to the trenches one is apt to forget—or not to realize —the immense amount of work which lumbering involves.
Here and there in the pine-clad Vosges mountains, one sees brown earth showing up through the dark green of the pines. As one approaches the brown patch the ringing blows of the axe and the crash of falling trees tell their own talc. Wood is being cut for the army. Before the war the annual growth was greater than the amount of timber cut, I believe, but the demands of the army have reversed this order of things. The brown patches are appearing more frequently and growing more extensive.
The amount of wood used for heating and cooking, for building dug-outs, lining trenches, building store huts, living huts, stables, etc., is enormous. Naturally, there are units of foresters, and labour companies, working continuously, and special convoys of" camions " are told off for trarisport.
The trees are carefully chosen for felling by the experienced Gardes Fores t iers. Felling proceeds apace, the trunks are trimmed, then dragged, 058 rolled and levered, until they can be slid wholesale down the mountain side to the saw-mill. Here they are trimmed and cut into beams and planks which the lorries load up, and bear off to the various pares de genie, or engineers' dumps.
' Some trunks are cut up as they fall into logs 9 to 12 ft. long. These are slid and rolled down to the waiting " camions" and carted off to saw-mills farther away.
Loading the " carnions " is interesting. A platform is built out from the hill-side sti that it is a foot or so higher than the floor of the lorry. The legs are then rolled along this platform and loadedup without recourse to any lifting tackle whatsoever. For forestry work the sides of the lorries are re. moved, leaving only a. bare platform. This is strengthened and protected by adding cross-beams which are concave on their upper surface. These beams receive the logs, which thus tend to work toward the centre of the vehicle.
The 4-ton Peugeot " camion " is often used, and half-a-dozen large logs form a good load. For beams, planks, i.e., cut wood., the ordinary bodies are used as the bulk is greater for the weight, and a, load will three parts fill the body. The pine branches are not wasted. One sees them on the roofs of huts, on gun emplacements, woven into a screen or hedge at the roadside—everywhere, in fact, where camouflage is necessary.
" Camione" are being more extensively used for the transport of troops now, while the trailer is also being employed to a greater extent. Every day at 9..30 a.m. and 3.30 p.m. a lorry and trailer depart bearing " permissionaires," or "leave men," down to the railhead at F--. The ordinary 4-ton
Peugeot camion " is used, and form are placed in the ordinary body to pro vide seating accommodation. The trailei runs on twin solids and is of the ordinary two-wheel type. A spring drawbat is bolted to the frame of the lorry.
For use with fast, light lorries such as are used by the aviation service the trailers are mounted on twin—oocasionally single—pneumatics. The lorry and trailer can accommodate 26 and 14 men respectively, making 40 in all. The more skilful drivers as a rule handle the trailers.